


Up the Creek

by Roccolinde



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Schitt's Creek AU, just a series of connected scenes I'll add to as inspiration strikes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28406661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde/pseuds/Roccolinde
Summary: When their financial manager escapes to Essos and the government seizes their fortune, the Lannister family find themselves living in the last place they could imagine--the tiny town of Evenfall, Tarth.A Schitt's Creek AU. Somehow.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 33
Kudos: 42
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange Stocking Stuffers 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samirant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samirant/gifts).



> Months ago, the lovely Samirant said she would love a JB Schitt's Creek AU and we discussed what it would be like. I wrote her a scene but couldn't commit to more, so I never posted it, but as it's the Festive Season and there were stockings to stuff and Schitt's Creek is definitely about personal growth.... I'm posting it now, with a second scene for luck. Who knows if/when/what I will update this with more scenes, but they'll all be self-contained nonsense.

Jaime Lannister was not, despite occasional belief, stupid. Impulsive on occasion, certainly. Disinclined to academic pursuits, true. But he was not stupid. Which was why it galled him that it took him so damned long to realise he was fucked.

He didn’t realise it when the Casterly Mines ran dry—they’d threatened to do so for years and his father had long ago diversified their finances, and while it did not bode well from an optics viewpoint it was hardly the death knell for his life of immense privilege. 

He didn’t realise it when his family’s trusted financial manager, Petyr Baelish, literally disappeared in the middle of the night. Not even when it was revealed he’d skimmed from Lannister coffers for years, and funded his escape against criminal charges with its profits.

He didn’t even realise when the government seized the rest of their assets—money was money, after all, and the Lannisters were more than that. Lions and sheep and all that shit. 

No, it was only when they were informed the only asset still available to them was the tiny village on the remote island of Tarth his father had purchased a decade earlier only to find the island’s environmental laws were not so easily bent and his plans for a paradise resort were useless that Jaime even got an inkling, and when Tyrion mentioned there was a beachfront property he quickly quashed any little voice telling him that perhaps things were quite dire.

And then they arrived on Tarth.

It was grey and cold, and appeared to be composed of two roads, a handful of shops that weren’t even open on a Sunday, and maybe thirty squat clapboard houses.

“Beachfront property!” Tyrion cheerfully reminded them, which really should have been a warning in itself, but Cersei picked up her designer luggage (hastily packed and hidden when she’d seen the government coming) and Tywin had haughtily sniffed, and Jaime had followed along because what else was he to do? Some pretty cocktails and prettier beachgoers would undoubtedly make up for the horrifying fact that the whole dock smelled vaguely of fish.

The beachfront property was, in fact, a six-room motel on the outskirts of town—though that implied it had inskirts, which it very much didn’t—painted a strange shade of grey-blue. Well, the parts that still had paint. And the beach was worse—huge capped waves slammed against the pebble-strewn shore, with nary a cocktail umbrella in sight.

“Delightful,” Jaime muttered to his sister, who patted his arm.

“Rhaegar has promised to come pick me up,” she said. “I’m sure we can rescue you and drop you off in a place with—” she pulled out her phone, looked at it, and sighed, “reliable cell service.”

“Oh, don’t mind that!” boomed a voice so loud Jaime was surprised the damned motel didn’t take one shuddering breath and collapse. It was attached to a man who resembled a mountain: huge, craggy, and topped with snow-white hair. “The weather is interfering with the signal, but if you go up the hill or into town you’ll have it right back. And we’ve got a satellite phone in the front office for emergencies. I’m Selwyn Tarth, mayor of Evenfall.”

He extended his hand, which was, Jaime would later conclude, why Tywin made the mistake of stepping forward with the plan to reciprocate—always best to intimidate with a firm handshake, his father said. Instead the mountain man swept Tywin into a crushing hug while his children looked on in delight at the shade of puce his face was turning, and then released him.

“And would you just believe,” the man continued, “you’ve come all this way only to find a relation?” 

He stepped aside to reveal a short, portly woman with yellow hair—not blonde, but that particular shade of yellow that could only come from a bottle—who let loose with a squealed “CUZ!” and promptly hugged a very confused Tywin.

“Do I know you?” Tywin asked, picking the woman’s arms from him with delicate fingers. 

“Why, it’s me, Genna! I’m your… first cousin twice removed? Second cousin once… Oh, bother, I can never remember how this goes. I haven’t seen you Great Uncle Tytos died. These _cannot_ be the children though!” She was looking at the Lannister siblings with an eager eye, and Jaime briefly wondered if she planned to start pinching cheeks. “My, they’ve grown!”

Tywin cleared his throat. “Of course, Genna,” he said. “It is always good to see a Lannister.”

“You’ll have to come to dinner!” Genna said firmly. “Not today, I’m sure you’ll want to unpack. Selwyn dear has put you in the finest suite the motel has to offer. And if I know...” she craned her neck around, giving a hum when someone emerged from what Jaime could only presume was the office, “There we are! Brienne, dear!”

The figure was tall, Jaime’s height or near enough he expected, and dressed in loose-fitting jeans and a flannel shirt two sizes too large. Then they looked up, and Jaime realised it was a _woman_. He had the good sense not to _say_ so, but it was a close-run thing. Especially when she stomped over with a scowl on her face. 

“You’re the Lannisters? Follow me.” Without waiting for a reply, she marched back towards the motel, Lannisters trailing after her out of sheer necessity. “You’re in 103 and 104. There’s two beds in each, we don’t care if you move things around but there’s a fee if we have to move it back ourselves. Hot water is on the fritz, but just wait a minute and it will kick in. Usually.” 

She swung open one of the two doors with force, revealing what Jaime could only describe as a nightmare. Grotty carpet, wallpaper yellowed with age, and a jaunty sea painting meant to invoke whimsy rather than the vague seasickness he was beginning to feel. He turned to the woman—Brienne—and gave her a smile.

“Thank you,” he said, oozing charm. “Could we perhaps get some towels?”

It wasn’t _about_ the towels, of course. He just had to get Brienne on their side, and given the rest of his family—Father would forget she existed, Cersei would make catty comments, and Tyrion would probably hit on her which would just be embarrassing for everyone—the task fell to Jaime. 

“Sure,” she said, surly. “Afraid we don’t have a pressing service.”

“That’s fine,” he replied.

She stomped off again, leaving the Lannisters to take in their surroundings. Cersei had declared that she and Jaime would share one room, leaving Tywin and Tyrion in the other, which was fine with Jaime. They’d shared a room as kids out of preference, and Cersei was less likely to stumble drunk through the room at three in the morning. Possibly.

They had not gotten very far in their planning—likely because they were too occupied mocking the rooms as if they weren’t the idiots who had to sleep there for the night—when there was a knock on the door. It was Brienne, carrying a basket of neatly folded towels and a chip on her shoulder the size of the mountain Jaime had spotted in the distance as they’d sailed into port. She scowled as she thrust the towels at him.

“Careful,” Jaime said. “Keep that face in this weather and it will freeze like that.”

“It’s just my damned face,” she retorted, spinning on her heel to lumber back to the office like some particularly cumbersome elephant. So much for charming her. 

Shutting the door behind him, he tossed the basket on the nearest bed and reached for one of the vaguely grey towels and found it was still damp. 

And in that moment, Jaime Lannister knew he was fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

The first day on Tarth was almost peaceful—Tyrion had holed up with their father in their room to plot their return to power, an alliance that would only be slightly more terrifying if it involved literal dragons, and Cersei didn’t actually look up from her phone screen. Which left Jaime at loose ends, so he walked into town and found a _Café Tundra_ that appeared to be open. He pushed the door open and stepped inside, and was immediately hit by a front of warmth and baked goods, and an assault of kitschy decor that he suspected was in no way meant to be ironic. 

Whatever. He could deal with this if it meant he could eat something beyond the complimentary crackers the ferry had offered the day before. His waitress was a bubbly red-head who introduced herself—with some fumbling and Jaime could only presume she was overcome with his beauty after being surrounded by grey skies and dead fish smell her entire life—as Alayne, and immediately informed him that they did not have quinoa, kale, _or_ pizza.

“What _do_ you have then?” he asked.

“Fish.”

He was going to die. He, Jaime Lannister, was going to die in this hellhole of a backwater town, and they’d probably carve a fucking fish on his tombstone. 

“Anything else?”

“Not right now!” Alayne said perkily. “You missed the breakfast _and_ the lunch rush, and our deliveries don’t come in for another” —she craned her neck to look at the bright yellow clock decorated to resemble a lemon— “two hours. You can have fish, or you can come back then.”

“Give me the fish,” he said in resignation. Somehow he suspected it would be more deep-fried cod and chips than the exclusive Over the Wall Fish Soup served at _The Blue Pearl_ on the Street of Silk in King’s Landing. One needed to be reserved a sennight in advance, and the other could give you a heart attack by the time you were thirty. 

He was right. Alayne dropped an oversized plate with fried fish, chips, and what he was _fairly_ certain was meant to be a salad but was in fact two dry cucumber slices and some arugula that had seen better days before him, and then slid into the seat opposite him.

“Don’t you have customers to serve?”

Alayne looked around at the few people, all happily eating their meals. “Nope,” she said, her lips popping on the p like it was bubblegum. “You new here?”

He took a bite of his meal, surprised to find it delicious. He could only blame the relief of actual sustenance for his reply.

“I am, yes. We’re staying at the motel?”

Alayne perked up. “So you’ve met Brienne?”

Brienne? Oh, right. The Lady of the Towels.

“Yes.”

Alayne sighed almost dreamily. “Isn’t she magnificent?”

Jaime remembered the lumbering, sour-faced woman from the day before.

“She’s… something,” he said, grimacing. 

Not that Alayne seemed to notice. “She’ll treat you real good,” she continued. “When I was new here—” Alayne shook her head. “Brienne’s a little prickly, but I couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

“I could ask for better towels,” Jaime muttered under his breath, shoving another bite of hot fish into his mouth. 

“Do you want coffee?” Alayne asked, eyes bright.

Jaime sighed. “Is it instant?”

He would not put it past this town.

“No. Freshly ground, direct from Essos.” Alayne leaned in conspiratorially. “Tarth has been trading for so long that we get some of the best quality beans for half the price of the mainland.”

His father and brother would immediately find a way to exploit the discovery, but Jaime just sighed in relief. “Please. Two cups.”

As if on cue. the cafe’s doorbell rang. He looked towards it, and found the subject of their previous discussion. 

“Brienne!” Alayne exclaimed, rising from her seat and crossing the room to embrace her; to Jaime’s surprise, the other woman hugged her back, and even _smiled_. It was a small, crooked thing that revealed teeth that ought to have seen an orthodontist, but it was… warm. Or at least it was, until her gaze swept the room and settled on Jaime, and her scowl returned. Well. That was her problem. 

“Make it three cups!” he called to Alayne. “I’m going to need it.” 


End file.
